Reselling Knock Off Celine Sunglasses on Etsy as Handmade to Order

Thread today in Etsy's forums here shows that even shop owners are confused about what reselling is and what a reseller shop looks like.  As one post mentioned, reselling is just plain old ecommerce:  buying wholesale and selling retail.  It's a normal business practice.  The problem with reselling on Etsy is that resellers pretend to have designed and/or made the products themselves when in reality the items were purchased -- designed and made by others.  Etsy's staff encourages resellers by coaching them in creating deceptive wording for listings and shop information pages, if the items they offer are in line with Etsy's site branding.  Deceptive selling is not plain old ecommerce or a good business practice. 

Yesterday I compared the number of sellers on Etsy and Ebay selling knock offs of Celine gold chain sunglasses.  Etsy wins (no surprise there).  Etsy dominates the online retail marketplace now for certain types of reseller goods.  Ebay had one seller, honestly disclosing the item is not marked, is a copy (inspired), and is new with tags.  The Etsy knock offs (all the same product sold on Ebay!) listed by 6 different sellers are deceptively sold as handmade.  A couple of extra special resellers list their purchased knock offs as "handmade to order". 

Here are the knock off Celine gold chain sunglasses sold on Etsy (no links to the actual shops, but you can find the listings from the titles or images).

Shop No. 1:  Celine Gold Chain Sunglasses Celebrity Sunglasses

 

Seller claims they are (hand) made to order, but you can see the "Made In China" gold lettering inside the ear piece on the pair at the bottom!

Shop No. 2:  Gold Sunglasses

These are also (hand) made to order, but description says:

"MATTE BLACK sunglasses

&

GLOSSY BLACK. sunglasses

brand new, never worn."

Yeah, isn't that what all the artisans say about their handmade creations? 

Shop No. 3:  Celine Gold Chain Sunglasses with Black Frames

Shop No. 4:  Celine Inspired Gold Chain Sunglasses -- HOT (Black Back In Stock)

This seller claims to have this item available with a pink frame, but no photos of that version are shown.  I've seen these replicas with pink tinted lenses, but all the frames are black. 

Shop No. 5:  Celine Inspired Chain Link Sunglasses

Shop No. 6:  Celine Inspired Gold Cuban Chain Link Sunglasses/ Celebrity Trend/Metal Arms,excellent quality guarantee

So, if you want to resell designer brand knock offs and avoid paying the high fees to use Ebay, Etsy is the venue of choice. 

Factory Handmade Makes the Etsy Front Page

When I was very young, my family lived next door to a really nice woman who worked sewing handbags and soft luggage in a local factory.  She lived alone (divorced, an uncommon situation in the 1950s) in a house identical to ours in size and design -- except she had much nicer furniture than my parents could afford, and a very cool 50s kitsch aesthetic for her décor.  So working in a factory paid her well enough to have a comfortable, secure, independent life.  I have no reason to look down on people who make products in a factory environment.

What ticks me off big time about the "factory collectives" on Etsy is the pretense that a single person designs, makes, and sells a wide selection of products all by their lonesome selves.  Sells not only in an Etsy shop, but all over the net. 

Here is the item that was shown on the Etsy home page

It took only seconds to match the photo to other sites selling the same backpack.

Like here
Buy it retail on Market86

Or here:
Buy it at a huge mark-up on ecanvas bags
The item sold at this link is made with PU instead of cow leather, but uses the same image in the listing.

Wholesale here:
DoBest Wholesale wins a prize for creepiest item title I've ever seen!

Of course you can buy it on AliExpress

If you can make the minimum purchase of 300 units you can have it manufactured for you
Manufacturer on AliBaba
Production capacity is 100,000 units per month, prices per unit range from $3 to $8 each.

The "cupcakes" on Etsy might shake their orange and white pompoms in my face with annoyance and say the evil Ali sites stole the photos from the Etsy seller, and are pretending to copy her handmade design.  I'll be glad to accept that explanation, if they can explain to me how the merchants on AliExpress got access to additional photos from the same shoot, and larger high quality photos than those in the Etsy shop?

My guess is that Etsy's homepage will look much more like Storenvy's by this time next year.  Why keep the factory produced goods confined to the first pages of Browse sections?  Let's just calmly accept the reality of Etsy being the place for cleap factory produced goods, marketed with a cosmetically applied appearance of handmadeness.

Nothing Like Vintage (so why can't Etsy find and remove these items?) DVD Edition

A quick search for DVD in Etsy's Vintage category turns up lots of items, none of which can be vintage because the technology isn't yet 20 years old.   Here are a few of the most amusing "vintage" DVD listings.  (Note that this blog does not link to called out listings, but they can be found by the image and item title.)

The Complete Brazil Body Now Program - 6 DVDs and 4 Guides

A few months ago, before the Etsy forum mods tightened their grip, there were call out posts about infomercial workout DVD sets listed for sale on Etsy as handmade.  There were maybe a handful of listings, but Etsy's (n)ever vigilant Marketplace Integrity Team decided to show the community how well they had things in hand.  Etsy actually removed all of the P90X packages, and even kept track of new sellers trying to list them, removing them quickly.  Unfortunately, the MIT tends to avoid looking at the Etsy Vintage category, a bit of info that seems to be well known by online resellers.

Panasonic DVD-A320 DVD Player

This seller claims the DVD player is from the 1970s.   Clueless.

DR. BIZARRO a VINTAGE film from avon video production staring cheri & velvet summers now on dvd-r 1970s mature bondage fetish dvd

This seller has a shop full of new DVDs created from vintage VHS tapes, some (maybe all) of which are licensed products.  The photos show cases from the tapes, not the new DVDs, so who knows what you are buying here.

vtg Pioneer VXX2702 DvD Player Remote Control

I didn't look at every item in this shop, but easily half the photos suggested the items were nothing like vintage, and supposedly not allowed for sale on Etsy.

Individual or Set of 3 - Lenticular CD Case Wallet 3D Teddybear Teddy Bear Silver /CD24-R-109/

This listing is extra special because the (re)seller took advantage of the way an item can be listed in more the one top level category on Etsy without paying double for it, as you would have to do on Ebay.  The seller listed this case set as "vintage handmade" which means the seller claims to have made it at least 20 years ago.  But the seller did not make it, at any time.  Sold here by China Custom Promotional Products Wholesale Center: 
Where Etsy reseller could get the teddy bear CD case wholesale

Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson Interviewed on gigaom

Before returning to the Etsy reseller issue, I am archiving links to recent discussions about this topic in the media, here all in one place. 

Gigaom interview with Etsy CEO Dickerson Aug 2013

Be sure to read all the comments, especially the response from Dickerson to the irate Etsians who posted about resellers and recent changes to the site (FB and an obscure test that accidentally prevented buyers from choosing to check out with PayPal). 

Chad Dickerson's take on the Etsy reseller problem

Chad doesn't seem to "get" that resellers often do not take their own photos (many use professionally staged images supplied by their wholesale sources), do not need "help" for their shops since they don't make anything (except sales), and the differences between the wholesale price paid for their items and the asking price in their Etsy shops suggest a nice profit margin rather than selling goods too cheaply.  So the "behaviors" that might cause the Etsy community to disapprove, according to Dickerson, are not evident in the shops of actual resellers.  How strange is that?

Laughing at Etsyverse Vintage

Only in the Etsyverse are iPhone-related items considered vintage.  (Vintage, according to Etsy's rules for selling on the site, is supposed to be at minimum 20 years old.)  The ever diligent (nah!) Etsy Marketplace Integrity Team, responsible for reading and acting on reported shops and items, consistently ignores reports of iPhone cases listed in the Vintage category.  Does this lazy hypocrisy -- or hypocritical laziness? -- tick me off?  You bet!  And I guess I am not alone.

A new shop opened today on Etsy, with this single vintage listing:

The shop's name is a pure statement of Etsyverse luv, heartheartheartheart


To Billie Mars, the shop owner:  this is fun, and please list more!!!

Resellers on Etsy: Part 2 -- USA Sellers Selling Items Imported From Another Country

Yes, that's right -- what the title says is pretty typical for an Etsy reseller shop!

The silly forum complaints about resellers mostly point fingers at Chinese sellers, but according to Etsy those shops are owned by someone involved in the making process.  An American seller who buys finished products from China, and sells them without alteration or embellishment, had nothing to do with making the items.  They are resellers.

But don't believe for a moment that "Etsy hates resellers" or that Etsy is constantly vigilant and working on a better solution to the reseller problem.  What Etsy is working on are ways to coach reported USA resellers so they can continue to run their shops as usual without being reported as resellers, or getting bad feedback when their buyers receive their item -- supposedly made to order in the USA -- via China Post.  As in drop shipping.  Oops.

After reporting shops (sometimes more than once if they remain open for 4-6 months after being reported), I've discovered it seems that Etsy now allows these types of reselling:

• Buying items on Ebay and listing them unaltered in your Etsy shop as handmade by you.  Photos, titles, and descriptions copied from the Ebay seller.
• Buying items wholesale from factories and claiming you are the designer of these items.  Even though multiple Etsy shops are selling them, all claiming to hand make each item to order. 
• Buying items wholesale from specialty sites whose pages are not indexed by Google or other SEs, so the borrowed photos are more challenging to trace.
• Selling imported knock-offs of famous designer brand items and claiming you made them.  Etsy's reluctance to deal with copyright infringement issues unless contacted by the owner gives these items a free pass for reselling.  When brand owners demand a takedown, Etsy complies.  Some USA reseller shops have listings deleted again and again as different brands find their shops (you can check out their sold listings and note the growing ranks of blank boxes where the image, title and link have been redacted).  All the while, Etsy's Marketplace Integrity Team ignores reports of reselling by these shops, and they stay open. 

Resellers may very well the type of seller most likely to open an Etsy shop these days.  After all, you are allowed -- even encouraged -- to create deceptive listings on Etsy that aren't tolerated on Ebay.  Part 3 will call out some designer brand items -- maybe real, maybe knock offs -- that you can find listed on Etsy as made by the shop owner.  That's right, Betsey Johnson, LV, Tory Burch and other brands have handmade shops on Etsy!

Resellers on Etsy: Part 1 -- What is a reseller?

One reason why no constructive dialog can take place between the seller community and Etsy corporate about the failure of marketplace integrity on the site is the failure of many Etsy sellers to understand what reselling is about.  How many Etsy handmade sellers can recognize an actual reseller shop?

Reselling is not about making.  So-called mass made items can still be handmade according to Etsy's standards.  How many made equals mass made, anyway?  One hundred?  One thousand?  Let's get real:  some of the most successful shops on Etsy have been making and remaking the same items for years, and their items are unquestionably handmade.

A reseller is someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with the process of making the items they sell.  Maybe the item was made in a factory in the USA or in China.  Maybe the item is art the seller purchased at a gallery 4 years ago, selling it now because they changed their décor style.  Maybe the item is an afghan handmade by a neighbor.  Where the item was made doesn't matter.  How many hands were involved doesn't matter.  If the seller was not involved in the making process in any way, it is not supposed to be listed for sale.

I will be making a series of entries about reselling and resellers:  how I recognize resellers, how I report them, and the unexpected results that can occur when Etsy's Marketplace Integrity Team reads documented reports.

Is Etsy Corporate a Sincere Incompetent or Is Etsy Just Insincere?

I think OPUM had it right.  (OPUM -- Our People's Underworld Movement -- was an imaginary front for conspiracy orgs, made up by an executive editor of National Review back in the 1960s.)  OPUM sold packets of wacky little cards printed with make-you-think humor.  One card read:

A sincere incompetent should be judged competent until proven insincere.

Watching the antics on Etsy these days, my question is not about the company's competence.  It is about Etsy's sincerity.

For months now, international spam bots had been invading the Forums with massive posts of links (some working, some not) to various sites.  Etsy's brilliant forum mods claimed they could not stem the bot invasion, and we needed to keep reporting each post the bots threw in there.  I guess the whiz kidz finally figured out how to block the Forums spam because the bot messages have ceased.  Now the spammers have begun starting Teams of one (bot) member.  At last count, I found over 150 such teams started in the past 2-3 days.  More show up every hour.  Predictably, Etsy's mods now want users to report all those spam Teams...like they can't view the Teams list in order of most recently started and just delete them?  WTF?  Free clue to you, hipsters:  you are being paid to maintain the site by our fees fercryinoutloud so do your jobs already!

Seriously, what type of ecommerce site allows new users to register and form their own groups on day one?  Without having made a purchase or opening a shop?  What qualifications do users with no history of site activity have for starting their own Etsy users' group?

I don't for one minute believe that Etsy's staff cannot change the requirements for forming a Team, and delete the spammer teams without us reporting them.  Which means I don't believe that Etsy's employees are sincerely incompetent.   Not at all.

I only sell vintage items, but reselling on Etsy effects me, too!

Before my old computer died at the end of April, I used to spend about an hour each day reporting items listed on Etsy as vintage which were, in fact, brand new mass produced factory fresh pieces of (mostly) jewelry.  I kept a folder of bookmarked shops I reported, so I could check back in a few weeks and see what -- if anything -- the members of Etsy's Marketplace Integrity staff had done after receiving the report.  Usually after 3 weeks or so, a shop only selling new items as vintage would have been closed.  If the shop also sold other items, allowed on Etsy, the items not allowed had been removed.

So, I was a bit surprised to come back online at the end of May and see some shops selling new items as old still in business.  I wonder what's up with that?

I've decided to stop reporting shops or items that I find.  But I am bookmarking them, just to see if anyone else is reporting this stuff and what Etsy is doing about it.  So far, it looks like nothing is happening.

Just to be clear, I don't mean vintage sellers who are careless about research and think Pokémon, or Juicy Couture, or The Red Hat Society, or Harry Potter, are vintage (vintage = at least 20 years old for Etsy).   That's a different issue altogether.  I am talking about reselling brand new products you buy wholesale, a shop full of these. 

The way Etsy is starting to look, you can sell factory produced new mass made goods if you live in Asia, or have relatives or business associates in Asia, as handmade by you (!) because Etsy can consider your shop a "factory collective".  But if your only connection with Asia is where your wholesale source buys from the factory, you can sell the same items now as "vintage".  I hope that I am wrong about this, and the real problem is a work load backup for the Marketplace Integrity team.  But if the shops I reported months ago stay open, along with the new ones I found this month, vintage buyers need to look very carefully at prospective purchases on Etsy.  CAVEAT EMPTOR